11.6 (2013)
Directed by Philippe Godeau

Film Review

You don't have to own a masters degree in human psychology to see why a security guard who absconded with 11 million euros in 2009 should become a popular hero in France.  It was the two fingered salute that most of the country's population had been wanting to give to the banking fraternity since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008.  After all, it is hard to see much of a moral separation between one man who runs off with a vanload of loot and an industry which makes a habit of fleecing its investors through that institutionalised smash-and-grab raid 'the annual bonus', which is now, in these straitened times, a taxpayer-subsidised event.

Three years after he was arrested, it is unclear just what Toni Musulin's motives were when he pulled off the most publicised French heist of the decade, but, thanks largely to the internet, he has become something of modern folk hero, a Robin Hood striking a blow for the common man against a corrupt financial elite that seems to operate outside the rule of law.  Musulin's arrest and imprisonment (he is currently serving a five year stretch - three years for the robbery plus two years for car insurance fraud) have only helped to shore up his mythic status, whilst public resentment against the coterie of wide boys and fat cats who still infest the banking system (and who appear to be immune from prosecution) continues to fester.  You can almost hear the tumbrils clattering over the cobblestones of old Paris...

But who exactly is Toni Musulin and what was it that changed him from a dutiful security guard, the withdrawn son of a Yugoslav immigrant, into a mix of Ronnie Biggs and Zorro?  These are the questions that director Philippe Godeau sets out to answer in his well-timed biopic of Musulin, liberally adapted from Alice Géraud-Arfi's 2011 book Toni 11.6 - Histoire du convoyeur.  Whilst Godeau's film has all the trappings of the classic French heist movie, it is primarily a character study which attempts to unravel the mystery of the man who remains doggedly reticent about himself and the stunt that has made him a cultural icon.  Not surprisingly, the film raises far more questions than it answers.  In addition to being a slick crime drama, it provides a sobering reflection on the kind of society we have become, one that is totally obsessed with the rapid acquisition of wealth, to the exclusion of all those things that give life its meaning and poetry.

It is hard to imagine anyone better suited to portray Toni Musulin than François Cluzet, the lead actor in Godeau's previous film drama, Le Dernier pour la route (2009).  As in that earlier film, Cluzet has very little dialogue but manages to convey so much about his character's fraught inner life through the subtlest of gestures and expressions, inviting us to draw our own conclusions about a man that defies understanding.  Far from being the heroic figure he has been portrayed (most vociferously by the banker-bashing bloggers), Musulin comes across in the film as an altogether more pathetic figure, a disturbed and highly unsympathetic individual who clearly aspires to a better life and who seethes with resentment at the lowly status Fate has allotted him.  Morally, he is no better (and perhaps no worse) than the banking executives whom he openly despises and is determined to get even with.  He acquires a fast car (a Ferrari no less), but carries on cycling into work each day.  Not content with his modest circumstance, he clearly hankers after the millionaire life style.  Is Musulin's crime politically motivated or simply an expression of excessive human greed?  Such is the complexity of his warped psychology, emphasised throughout by Cluzet's ambiguous portrayal of him, that we can never be sure which it is.

An interesting variant on the modern film noir, 11.6 provides a study in the psychology of a criminal which is intelligent, convincing and thoroughly engrossing.  The narrative may be a little uneven in parts, the mise-en-scène occasionally heavy handed, but these shortcomings are amply compensated for by the unstintingly authentic performances from Cluzet and his co-stars, Bouli Lanners and Corinne Masiero.   The more the film tells us about Musulin, the more opaque and mysterious he appears, and whilst he is hardly the most sympathetic of heroes, it is hard not to side with him as he ram-raids an industry that is still regarded with the utmost contempt by most ordinary folk.

Film Synopsis

For ten years, Toni Musulin has worked as a security guard, delivering money without incident and without arousing the slightest suspicion.  But one November morning in 2009, he drives off in his armoured car, aware that he is sitting on 11.6 million euros, which he has no intention of delivering...